Significant Gender Disparities in Employment Opportunities

“Gender Equality in China's Economic Transformation” was published October 2014 and was the collaborative efforts of UN Women, UN Systems in China and experts from Peking University and National Women’s University. It covers gender issues in the labor market during China’s economic transformation and the causes of gender disparity and inequality in three selected areas: employment opportunities, income and unpaid labor.

 As a result of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese women’s labor force participation rate was higher than that of most other countries at the time. Yet, since the market-oriented economic reform, Chinese women’s labor force participation rate has declined, especially among mothers with pre-school age children, and took a sharp decline after the privatization of state-owned enterprises in the 1990s.

All in all, the labor force participation rates of both men and women are declining, but women’s labor force participation rate is declining at a faster pace. The decline is influenced by state policies and social environment, the income gap between husband and wife, housework and family care and women’s educational attainment.

27% of Chinese women who dropped out of the labor force reported their reason as “taking care of families”, compared with 2% of unemployment men reporting the same reason. Women also have far fewer job opportunities than men and are less likely to work at the administrative level and more likely to concentrate in lower-level jobs.

Gender disparity is also pronounced in occupational structures. For instance, 53.2% of women were in the agricultural industry, almost 9percent points higher than thepercent of men working in agriculture, and only 19.3 of women work in the secondary sectors in more urban areas, compared to the 28.1% of men. In areas like construction, mining, transportation and power supply, all traditionally dominated by men, the proportion of female employees was significantly lower.

Women comprised a smaller share of the population employed in the urban areas and is also declining yearly from 38.0% in 2000 to 36.3% in 2010. Gender-based occupational segregation exists even within informal employment, where 42.39% of women are employed. Female workers in the informal sector were mostly commercial and service staff, whereas male workers in the informal sector were mostly technicians and managers.